Trump plays Putin's ball, but no breakthrough in Helsinki

Trump plays Putin's ball, but no breakthrough in Helsinki
By bne IntelliNews July 16, 2018

US President Donald Trump made the US-Russia Helsinki summit an easy walk for President Vladimir Putin by not confronting his Russian counterpart on any critical issue, from election meddling, Ukraine and the Crimea annexation, to Syria to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Europe.

Similarly to the "historic" summit with North Korea, the mere fact of holding a separate much publicised summit with Russia as an equal partner has been seen by Trump's critics as helping to strengthen Putin's position on the world stage and playing to his legitimacy at home.

Trump failed to prove the critics wrong and after a two-hour closed tête-à-tête meeting with the Russian president recapitulated Putin's main talking points on the topical issues that came up at the joint press conference. This came in stark contrast with Trump's behavior in his most recent European tour, where he openly castigated and bashed his allies and leaders of Germany, the UK, and Nato.

Trump reiterated "no collusion", Putin's "powerful denial" of election meddling and "thousands of lives to be saved" by working together in Syria, while repeating his familiar tropes of questioning the US intelligence agencies, bringing up his rival in the US presidential race Hillary Clinton and defending his election win.

Ironically, while Trump seemed to have talked for Putin, Putin also played along with Trump and himself reiterated the US official position of not recognising Crimea as Russian, saving the Trump the embarrassment of not being able to firmly condemn the annexation of the peninsula.

Speaking of the recent indictment of 12 Russian nationals by the Robert Mueller probe into Russia's election meddling, Putin has employed a strategy similar to that used against the UK’s accusations of Russia's involvement in the Skripal poisoning: voicing readiness to cooperate with the investigation, should the readiness for cooperation be (extremely unlikely) be reciprocated by the accusing party. Trump called the joint investigation bid an "incredible offer". 

The supple performance by Trump has already raised a sharp wave of criticism at home, with Twitter seething with accusations of it being "nothing short of treasonous" (ex-CIA head under Barack Obama John O. Brennan) or "most disgraceful by an American president ever" (CNN's Anderson Cooper). 

"That #Trump-#Putin presser was everything the Kremlin realistically could have hoped for. Putin gets to look like the urbane grown-up, and presents #Russia as peer power to USA. Trump virtually exonerates Russians for meddling, Crimea, etc while laying into his own country," tweeted bne IntelliNews columnist Mark Galeotti, senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague

But apart from negligibly improving the sentiment on Russia in the hope of a more pragmatic dialogue between Washington and the Kremlin, the summit brought no breakthroughs on major economic issues, as forecast on July 16 by Chris Weafer in his Macro Advisor column for bne IntelliNews.

Specifically, Trump brought no clarity on the US position on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline or the intention to sanction it most recently hinted by his Energy Secretary Rick Perry, only praising Putin for being a “good competitor” and promising that the US and Russia "will compete" on EU gas supplies. Putin said the US and Russia will put together a “working group” of Russian and American businessmen, without providing more details. Finally, no statements were made on the future of the sanctions regime against Russia.

"Overall, the summit output lacked details of any specific agreements," VTB Capital commented on July 17, adding that "however, the improvement in the quality of the dialogue at the highest level might lead to specifics appearing sooner rather than later, we think, if orders are given to proceed with diplomatic arrangements."

 

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